Seven people up against a pink-like wall.
Joe Eskenazi, Eleni Balakrishnan, Yujie Zhou, Will Jarrett, Annika Hom, Chuqin Jiang, David Mamaril Horowitz Photo by Lydia Chávez Oct. 4, 2022

We’ve had a lot of good news last week. First, Garbage Odyssey, an investigation of San Francisco’s bizarre and costly quest for the perfect trash can, won an Insight Award from the Institute for Nonprofit News. 

A week ago Saturday, Mission Local won a General Excellence award from the Online News Association for our submission: Small, but Mighty, a selection of five pieces that we hoped would show the breadth and depth of our coverage. Apparently, they did. Our entry included: 

It is wonderful to have the staff honored by the ONA and INN. It is also a recognition of our reader’s smart support. We could not have grown to a paid staff of five without you. So yes, we all won! 

One of the charms of working at Mission Local is the people I meet. I get tips from a local resident who hangs out at Delirium on what’s happening on 16th Street and wonderful invites to chat with – and learn from – experts who live in or near the Mission, like Robert Weiner and Melissa Perez. Great neighbors who have a lot of expertise in nonprofits and fundraising! 

I’m still on that learning curve. In the meantime, thanks to everyone – staff and readers – for your support.

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Founder/Executive Editor. I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019 when I retired. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still there.

As an old friend once pointed out, local has long been in my bones. My Master’s Project at Columbia, later published in New York Magazine, was on New York City’s experiment in community boards.

Right now I'm trying to figure out how you make that long-held interest in local news sustainable. The answer continues to elude me.

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5 Comments

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  3. They’re so young. It’s taken me decades to catch a glimpse of mediocrity and they’re all 22, babes, and deft with a keyboard? Damn. (Guy on the left looks like he’s pushing 30 though, so that’s reassuring.)

    Nice work.

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  5. Congratulations! Well deserved. What a great and hardworking crew!!! Keep up the excellent work.

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